important players, president obama and house speaker john boehner. joining me for our daily fix, nbc's david gregory moderator of "meet the press" and chris cizilla, msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics.com. david, you've been on the hill talking to a lot of people. what is your sense? we hear john boehner saying no progress. >> right. >> is this all just a lot of shadow boxing right now? >> i think it's a lot of shadow boxing. i've gotten a clear impression of is that republicans are in a position to give on tax rates, if, and i keep underlining a big if, if they can get the white house to deal on entitlements. they have to get something for their members. enough public sentiment saying give up on the tax breaks to get a bigger deal. the president could muscle through the tax rates on his own. risks on his side. why not force him into a position where they can get sort of a bigger deal. here's what i thought was important. republicans saying to me that, you know, last july when we had the debt debacle, the feeling was don't give th